Our party had returned to the city, running from a group of many
lizardmen, with our options in the cave exhausted by the vampires and such.

In addition to the old members Halacar, Standish, Alain, Brigling,
Browork, and Lissar, the new party assembled with additions Jefe, thrown
dart specialist, El Guapo, double dagger specialist, Duran, thrown dagger
specialist, and Zero, blinder helmet/ blind-fighting short sword specialist.

We set off for Wizard Mountain, uneventfully. We discovered a cave with
wagon ruts and avoided it. We found another cave and explored. There
were numerous holes on the right side of the cave floor, and so Brigling
went down one to check it out.

She was just turning back from a four-way intersection when something
tried to garrote her, and stole her magnifying lens. Standish dropped
down but found nothing there.

We moved on. There was a large pool of water along the side of the cave
now. Suddenly, a weird sonic shriek hit the party, paralyzing all but
Browork, Halacar, Standish, and Lissar. Some kind of bat creature was
attacking the party!

Standish went to work putting wax in his ears, while Halacar and Browork
plugged their ears. Lissar wrapped the cloak around his head like a
turban. Unfortunately, because of the continuous noise, spellcasting was
impossible. Just before Standish could finish the wax, he and Halacar froze.

That left the cleric and the mage. Browork distracted the creature by
being its target while Lissar ran back and threw a Sleep spell at the bat.

Halacar dropped instead.

This was lousy. Browork turned and ran toward Lissar, bringing the bat
with him. Lissar ran ahead and reached the cave entrance,
Spider-Climbing down to safety.

Browork ran out the mouth of the cave with creature still trying to kill
him. He yelled for Lissar to do something and began casting a spell.
Unfortunately, there was nothing Lissar could do, so Browork was attacked
again. Fortunately, the thing missed him, and he completed his Silence
spell, cutting off the attack with shocking suddenness.

Browork ran inside with the Silence stone, and covered the party. They
quickly regained their senses, and Halacar was kicked awake. We ran out
of the cave and back to town. There we purchased a net, and plotted our
revenge.

We draped the net at the entrance to the cave and marched up the corridor
with a Silence spell. The bat charged and we totally pasted it, though
it did have about 40 hp. The creature was identified as a mobat.

The rest of the corridor consisted of a pool filling from a small
waterfall. There was nothing behind the waterfall.

Disappointed, we decided to check out the wagon rut place. Inside were
many unnatural corridors. We discovered a sack of bones spilled on one
intersection.

We could hear weird clicking noises thanks to local sonar buoy, Zero.
They appeared to be all around us. We kept moving and charged straight
into the thing.

A giant insectoid creature with sword-like arms approached the front of
the party. Standish and his wardog Cromwell attacked the creature. It
was extremely armored and really mangled the guard dog Weatherby. The
party decided that this was too much and tried to retreat

Right into another one of the things.

The party realized it was in trouble. Zero and El Guapo were at the back
of the party and were at extreme disadvantages to the creature. We were
about to write ourselves off when Lissar hurled the net at the creature,
snagging it!

The party ran past as the creature struggled to rip free. It took a
swipe at Standish but missed, and we ran all the way out again.

We identified the creatures as hook horrors, colonial creatures that
dwell in groups of a few dozen.

We returned to town, healed, and decided that was the wrong way to go.
We went back into the cave and tried another corridor.

We were attacked by five goblins with slings. Lissar Slept them and we
killed all but one and took their silver pieces. We asked the goblins
what was behind some doors and such. We discovered a larder, and
Brigling picked the lock. Behind the door was a large amount of rations,
and some brandy in a crate labeled "Rat Poison."

We took the brandy. There was also a huge double door with a pull chain
doorbell. Our goblin captive informed us that there was a giant behind
the door. To ring the doorbell without "business" was very bad.

We decided that we needed money and that we would return and attack the
goblin fortress. Some bloodthirsty party members wanted to kill the
goblin, but no one wanted to free him to tell them about us.

So we took the goblin to town with us, and ended up selling him to a
weird guy who made the goblin into "Crusher the Goblin," gladiator
extraordinaire. Jefe attended his first fight, against a death-sentenced
halfling. The halfling had a dagger and tried to stab Crusher, but
damaged the dagger. Crusher leaped on him and ripped his jugular. He
stood, triumphant, was pelted with nuts, and took the halfling's head!
Jefe cheered!

We returned to the goblin fortress to wreak havoc. Halacar was turned
Invisible prior ot the combat. The combat began with a Sleep spell from
Lissar that took out the five goblin sentries. They were quickly
eliminated and the party moved forward. The party advanced to the doors
of the complex and opened them.

The party was attacked from both sides. In front were five scrub goblins
with short swords and such. On a partially concealed ledge behind and
above us were four goblins with slings.

The fighters in front-Standish, Alain, Zero, and El Guapo-began fighting
the scrub goblins while Jefe, Duran, and Brigling fired at the goblins
with slings. We quickly finished off the five goblins and only two sling
people remained when the double doors at the far end of the corridor
burst open and armed and armored goblins poured out.

About twenty spears were launched at the party wounding Alain and
Brigling and injuring Lissar badly. Browork began a Cure Light while the
sling people pelted us from below. Halacar stood Invisibly in front of
Browork as a shield.

The front line of goblins with spears crashed into the party's front
line. Party members were injured, but each hit killed a goblin. The
last sling people went down, and Browork dropped a Cure Light on Lissar,
who had been dropped in the combat. Lissar stood and dropped a Sleep
spell that took out about 15 goblins in the middle. The goblins were
divided into four distinct groups-spear and light armor, flail and
moderate armor, spear and moderate armor, and then actual heavily armored
goblins.

At one point, a line of goblins with spears were approaching. Zero
activated his ring of blinking, and Blinked-into the line of goblins!
Their formation was completely disrupted as Zero stabbed one and
escaped. Zero seemed unhittable, despite being in light armor.

We had run through most of the light armored goblins when disaster
struck. Alain sustained too many wounds and dropped, as did El Guapo.
Brigling and Standish were rapidly bleeding to death as well. Browork
Cured Brigling and Standish as Alain and El Guapo were lost under the
press of goblins. Halacar moved forward to break up a second spear
charge by appearing in the middle of their ranks. Instead he fumbled and
damaged his weapon.

About 30 goblins were dead, and only about twenty remained, but the party
was starting to look sad. We had already lost two people and were out of
curative magic.

It was then that five bugbears appeared behind the party and attacked.
Lissar went down from a spear hit and died almost instantly. The party
realized it was doomed and attempted to wheel around and get past the
bugbears.

Browork scooped up Lissar's magical quarterstaff. Halacar, Zero, and
Standish faced off against the bugbears while Jefe, Duran, and the two
dogs held off the goblins by killing them faster than they could
approach. Soon the war dog, Cromwell, was surrounded by goblins, while
the guard dog fought desperately against one.

The fighters were faring poorly against the bugbears (Halacar had already
damaged and dropped a falchion) until Zero blinked and appeared behind
them. Zero rammed his sword through one, but didn't kill it. Browork
yelled "Die" in goblin to attempt to clear an escape path, but the
bugbear didn't fall. Standish dropped his, but Zero was suddenly facing
two bugbears on his last legs. It looked as if his luck had run out.

Browork through his last offensive spell, a Hold Person that caught three
bugbears! That left only Halacar's remaining, and it was triple teamed
as fast as possible.

The guard dog was killed by goblins, but amazingly the war dog was still
alive. It had taken down two goblins and Jefe and Duran were making the
bodies pile up.

The gap that opened needed to be plugged, and Browork stepped up. He
immediately took a wound and was sent running to heal himself.

By this time the bugbear had been slain and Standish and Halacar stood in
the path of the goblins. All the goblins were dead but the two leader
types (ranseur, and longsword/shortsword). Then a rush of fifty
non-combatant goblins poured out of the fortress. We ducked to the side
as they flooded by.

The uninjured Halacar moved to engage the ranseur man while Standish took
out the longsword man. The ranseur man immediately flipped Halacar's
falchion on the floor. While the halfling struggled to hold a weapon,
Duran, Jefe, and Brigling killed the ranseur man from a distance, and
Standish finished off the final goblin as the rush went by.

We checked out the outpost and took what we could find, which turned to
be a Bag of Holding 150/5000 (no, that is not a typo). All the money we
gained was promptly lost as Browork gained a level. The dwarven cleric
became the first Wizard Mountain party member to train. He gained 7 hp
to stand at 29.

We set out once again, with some new party members. Replacing the fallen
El Guapo , Alain, and Lissar were the cleric Katrina, the illusionist
Nass, and the mage Megan. The illusionist has some nifty spells and
defensive magic items in particular. Standish's newest guard dog was
named Hampton. The war dog, Cromwell, had miraculously survived despite
being surrounded by goblins.

Before leaving, we saw Crusher the goblin's second fight, vs. a kobold.
Crusher was given his sword for this combat.

The kobold closed and tried to rip Crusher to shreds. Crusher struck
back and killed the kobold in one swing! We cheered.

Finally, we set out for a few more adventures. We traveled up the
hillside to find a stand of trees. We traveled further up the mountain,
having been tired of goblins, and we found an empty but well-used hut
next to a well. We went down the well and discovered a series of
passages that led us back to the goblin fortress by way of the bugbears'
entrance.

Farther up the hillside was a cave entrance. We entered, and were
attacked almost immediately by another mobat. This time we had the wax
ready, and only Jefe fell pray to the sonic attack. The creature was
wounded by a nasty strike by Zero and plummeted to the ground fifteen
feet below. Duran threw knives at it, but it was running away when
Brigling and Halacar arrived with bows to shoot it.

BOTH of them tumbled over the ledge, dropping their bows and landing in a
heap on the ground. Halacar was trashed by the impact, but Brigling was
only scratched. The creature was then taken out by Duran.

We fled back home for healing purposes and returned the next day to find
that the body of the mobat had weird eggs in it. We decided to look for
the creature that had laid the eggs. First off, Halacar was attacked by
a 2 foot long spider which barely scratched him.

In an attempt to get the spider off Halacar, Browork swung his hammer,
and connected with Halacar for maximum damage, and broke the handle of
his quality hammer. It was later Mended, but the ignominy still remained.

Moments later Halacar nearly died from the poison, but recovered nicely
(thanks to a 19 constitution). In another room, we discovered decrepit
furniture, and in the chest of drawers found a eight-pointed star pin
under some rotting cloaks. We moved on, and found a temple. It was
identified by Duran as a temple to the god of merchants, a chaotic
neutral to evil deity. Brigling decided to mess with the altar and
tripped a catch that opened up a section of wall in the back.

As we went into the next room, we were attacked by six skeletons that
formed from the piles of bones on the ground. It was clear that we were
on unholy ground as the clerics experienced difficulty Turning them, but
they were dispatched easily enough by Standish and Zero.

Finally the party went through another series of caverns and discovered
some garbage piles. Standish decided to wade through it, and was
promptly attacked by some tentacles, paralyzed, and dragged in. There
was a mass charge by Halacar and Zero, who were promptly paralyzed by two
more of the things. Browork realized that it was a poison attack and
Slowed Halacar, who stood up and began to kill the things.

Halacar was struck by numerous paralysis attacks but was unaffected, and
killed four of the things with the help of the knife and dart throwers.
Treasure was collected from the piles of debris, and an amazing 1600 gp
was found! The creatures were identified as carrion crawlers.

Duran found a minotaur skull in the murk, and cleaned it. In the
process, a crawler larva nailed him and paralzyed Duran for several
minutes. Undaunted, he finished the job.

We checked Halacar to see if anything weird would happen to him, but
didn't worry much when Zero and Standish recovered a half hour later,
though they were still a bit wobbly. We waited three hours for the Slow
Poison to wear off.

Halacar immediately collapsed into respiratory arrest and was saved only
by his constitution once again, and finally recovered several days later
after the party carried him out (Browork had badly blown a healing check).

The party returned, wealthier, and with Standish and Halacar closing in
somewhat on 4th level to join Browork and Brigling.

Crusher the goblin returned for an encore against an orc. The battle
immediately turned sour as Crusher damaged his sword and was forced to
melee range. Crusher was at one hp, but fought back desperately and
defeated the orc in dramatic fashion! We bought some nuts and threw them
at him. Crusher took the orc's head and retired to his corner cave.

Hope you enjoyed reading about our weekend of gaming. Until next time!